Boxing.
The Sweet Science.
It's been all over the media all week. Mainly because of the De La Hoya/Mayweather fight. While this has been important news, the Sports media has been taking this story in a whole different and wrong direction. So, instead of wasting paragraphs of flowery language and colorful metaphors upon a sports media that chooses to be willful ignorant unless the almighty dollar is involved, I will do the rest of this post as a question and answer post. Because I'm a gentleman of restraint and I'm doing it for you, my lovely fans. You don't deserve my hate. You just deserve the facts.
Here we go.
What is the Sports media doing?
They are pretty much taking this great match and creating this glorious myth of being "The Match That Saves Boxing" and then are using this as some sort of metaphysical "Dutch Courage" to strike back on MMA with what ever they got.
Really? I haven't seen much of that. Is there anyone specific?
So far from what I've seen, most of the ESPN "lunch crew" (Jim Rome Is Burning, PTI), Wally Matthews from the Vs. Network (which is home to the WEC) and some actor posing as a journalist on CBS Sportsline (you're going to have to google that one.). Expect a steady flow happening today and tomorrow and depending on the fight, a large blow up next week of orgasmic magnitude. Wear a raincoat and bring an umbrella.
Does Boxing need to be saved?
Not really. It's doing fine and well around the world. Anyone who think it needs to be saved is either weird or on drugs. I think it could be a possible end of the way...boxing is marketed. Also it could be the possible end of the current format that boxing uses at the moment. But, the end of Boxing as a whole? I doubt it.
Ok. But let's say for kids and giggles that the sport of Boxing does need to be saved. Will this fight save it?
Not really. How is one boxing match going to erase the mistakes of the past? It's like your brother constantly being the ass of the family for years and then he joins a church custodial staff just to make you forget that he's the ass of the family. If anything, this is a steadily hyped boxing match. And it will breed interest in more steadily hyped boxing matches involving Mayweather and De La Hoya. You can't actually believe that one match will make anything better. It has to start to be and remain consistent to be taken seriously again. It has to be cleaned up, start following a beneficial agenda and have an actual format to rely on.
If Boxing is relying on this match on saving them, it really shows how much brains makes up the higher ups in this particular promotion.
What does MMA have to do with any of this?
Absolutely nothing.
Then why is the Sports media so adamant about attacking it?
I don't know. Other then Caligarian mesmerism, the only explanation I can give is that they can't come to terms with the problems in Boxing and instead of doing their jobs and talk about these problems, they pretty much lash out at the newest popular thing in denial. MMA was just passing through the neighborhood at the time.
Is MMA killing Boxing?
Hell no. And if it is, it's not intentional. Sure you have Dana White saying that the UFC is killing boxing, after De La Hoya retires boxing is over, blah blah blah. This is the same guy who got in an F-bomb war with Pride's two bit guppy on satellite radio. His words don't mean crap.
What I find interesting is that those who are still hanging off Boxing's sac are saying that it's mostly the young (21-35) that is watching MMA. Am I disputing that? Absolutely not. There have been facts and figures who state this is a fact. What's really silly is that the Sports media thinks that it's ONLY the young that is growing the sport of MMA. They're totally wrong on this. It's not only the young growing this sport, it's Boxing's future neighbors, the Traditional Martial Arts community that has put some effort in growing this sport as well. To totally ignore this fact is what shows the true base of Boxing's arrogance. A sport whose basis is a mix of other highly technical combat sports that get little to no coverage or props from the mainstream save clips for the Olympics is being bashed by the so called Sports media as a "bar room brawl" over the fact that a less technical combat sport that has many variations of one focal point of attack is losing fans because they're turned off by the constant scandal that combat sport is plagued with and are starting to enjoy advanced styles of striking and new ideas of ground technique.
In short?
Because Sports media doesn't understand the gogoplata, they're gonna hate on the gogoplata.
De La Hoya or Mayweather?
De La Hoya. He's more into the fight then Mayweather is.
PS: If your Sports media is spending more time covering the length of Jarrod Saltalamacchia's name more then a UFC card, you know you're in trouble.
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